“The biggest SEO mistake I see businesses making every day is using the wrong keywords for their specific line of business. The first step to optimizing your content for SEO is identifying the perfect keywords for your product or service in your industry. What are the right keywords for your product or service? What are your potential consumers searching for? What solution is your product or service offering? This process can be tricky and time-consuming. Test and analyze this data until you find the best keywords that will generate you the most sales.”
- Jon Zacharias, CEO and Founder of The Search Guy
SEO is one of the most important marketing strategies for small businesses. SEO is the process of optimizing your website to get organic or unpaid traffic from the search engine result page. So the higher you rank on Google, the more opportunities you will have to get traffic to your site, which is a big win. The most important factor in SEO optimization is using the right keywords for your business. Understanding the optimal keywords that people search for to find your product is the first step. Second, creating content that includes those keywords and answers to the questions the potential consumers might be asking. The most common mistake I see businesses make with SEO is rushing the process of keyword research, which leads to inadequate content creation that fails to bring in expected traffic.”
- AshwinSokke, Co-founder of WOW Skin Science
“The biggest mistakes I see businesses making when using SEO tools are not using the right keywords. When it comes to picking the right keywords, most businesses don't realize that they need to pick the correct keyword depending directly on what type of business they are and in which industry they exist.”
- Brandon Monaghan, Co-Founder of Miracle Brand
“I think is the most common is that business owners are not optimizing the right keywords for their pages that often brings traffic to the website. I understand that most website owners know their product or service but they should be aware that customers or clients have different words in their mind when doing a search query that leads back in finding your website.”
- UlysisCababan, Content Strategist at RapidVisa
“It's common to see people writing articles without conducting any keyword research first. Sometimes, writers just assume that people are searching for the content they are producing, which is a big SEO mistake. You should always take the time to check that the topic is being searched first. Not only will you know if it is viable for SEO traffic but it will also likely shape your content based on the types of keywords being used. Writers are often able to unearth new angles through keyword research too, resulting in a more in-depth piece.”
- Adam Lumb, Site Manager at Cashcow Ltd
“Using Wrong Keywords: This is one of the most common mistakes that digital marketers do in SEO. Choosing wrong keywords or sometimes using very general keywords so the competition with other websites will be very tough, I think it's better to use, or specific and let's say more local keywords to your website. So, the competition will be less and your website will be in better ranking.”
- Vince Massara, C.C.O at Your Fitness Radar
“One of the biggest SEO mistakes I see companies making going after high-volume keywords only, thinking that they will win significant traffic that way. The thing is, high-volume keywords have lots of competition and many brands think the way you do. Instead, aim for lower volume keywords with very low to non-existent competition. For example, instead of writing content around a keyword that gets 5,000 searches per month, write for a keyword that gets 500. Bottom line is, volume is not everything. Instead, focus on lower competition and higher intent for conversions.”
- Jane Kovalkova, CMO of Chanty
“One of the many common SEO mistakes that digital marketers should avoid is using the wrong keywords. In fact, we see a lot of companies targeting keywords that are too broad or competitive. For example, mortgage refinance rates will have a high search volume, but it is a very competitive keyword.
Instead, it would be best if you targeted a similar keyword that is easier to rank for, such as refinance house loan or va mortgage refinance, both of which still see a good number of searches each month, but are much less competitive. Additionally, they are starting to get more specific.
We have also noticed that many marketers don't want to target keywords that have lower average monthly searches. In our example, something like best refinance home mortgage loan rate might not be considered worthwhile. However, it has a low competition score, and it is an extremely specific topic.
If you are looking to start getting first page rankings, you can start with some of these lower competition and search volume keywords that are much more specific. As you get more first page rankings, Google might start ranking your other pages targeting other keywords higher as well.”
- Chelsea Roller, Content Manager at Rank Fuse Digital Marketing
“One of the most common pitfalls we see with SEO clients is wanting to rank for certain keywords without first conducting keyword research. Many of them come to us having been burned by past “experts” who have used this strategy with lackluster or damaging results. Targeting keywords that you think your audience is looking for without having the research to back it up is a waste of time and resources, especially when there are tools available to eliminate any guesswork. We’ve found success using hard data to identify ranking opportunities that are both relevant and winnable for our clients.”
- Adam Binder, Founder of Creative Click Media
“A lot of people fall victim to not being unique enough with their descriptions of products, taglines and titles and this has quite a negative effect on their SEO.
Often people misunderstand the importance of keywords. Although critical and correct optimization for your keywords is essential, there is a fine balance between using keywords and overusing them, especially in - where I previously stated - product descriptions, taglines and titles.
Remember that you need to attract viewers as well, and a boring, keyword-focused approach may not be the right attitude.”
- Andrew Taylor from Net Lawman
“Not researching keywords before creating and publishing content.
We all get excited about the topics that we want to talk about. We also want to answer common questions that our audience has about the topic. The problem is that those common questions tend to be very competitive to rank for.
If you spend a few minutes researching the keywords, either using a free tool or a paid one, it can mean the difference between getting seen and not getting seen.
For example: 'How to Optimize for SEO' is a very difficult term to get on page 1 of Google for. Alternatively these terms are less competitive:
- Search engine positioning or SEO positioning
- Search engine optimization guaranteed
- SEO solutions
- SEO internet marketing
A common oversight many content creators tend to have is in putting these keywords in the 'ALT' text of their images. This is the text that will be displayed if the image cannot be displayed.
Google checks the Alt text for keywords and ranks the image for those keywords. So it's worth adding researched keywords to the images as well as in your headers.”
- Sophia Nomicos, Founder of Mas & Pas Limited
“One of the most common mistakes many Digital Marketers make is the selection of wrong keywords for SEO purposes. Targeting the wrong or irrelevant keywords for SEO elements on the site pages diminish the efforts and also the organic growth.
SEO professionals perform the keywords research before preparing recommendations for on-page SEO but they don't perform the research correctly and select only the top keywords which seem relevant to them on the first look. It may be due to time constraints or lack of information or understanding.
The keywords strategy should be done in such a way that the website should cover maximum key phrases relevant to the site's offerings which should include local keywords (for business serving locally), long tail key phrases (in query form), and the trending keywords. The sites ranking on top in your niche are the best source to prepare your list for target keywords.”
- AkashDwivedi, SEO Head at Desertcart